ruby - Ruby itself is prerequisite in order to build Ruby 1.9. It can be 1.8.

Note that on cross compiling BASERUBY should be the same version of the building ruby.Even if BASERUBY is the same version but can't build because of platform dependency, it is a bug and please report it.

If you use debian, you can do this to install all necessary dependencies:

btest-ruby
see bellow.
test-sample
executes and checks sample/*.rb with MINIRUBY
test-knownbug
executes KNOWNBUGS.rb with MINIRUBY
test-all
tests more with RUNRUBY.

all tests should work without make install'ing before.

But some tests might need make install in practice.

You can pass arguments to test/runner.rb via variable TESTS. e.g. You can get detail of test progress as
% make test-all TESTS=-v
And you can test a test case you want as
% make test-all TESTS=test_foo
check
executes both of test and test-all.
btest
executes the lightweight tests by MINIRUBY. This is useful when the unittest library does not work correctly.

run
executes $(srcdir)/test.rb by MINIRUBY.You can specify another script as TESTRUN_SCRIPT=path/to/script.rb.
runruby
executes $(srcdir)/test.rb by RUNRUBYYou can specify another script as TESTRUN_SCRIPT=path/to/script.rb.
gdb
executes $(srcdir)/test.rb by miniruby under gdb.You can specify another script as TESTRUN_SCRIPT=path/to/script.rb.

You can define breakpoints in $(srcdir)/breakpoints.gdb.
gdb-ruby
executes $(srcdir)/test.rb by ruby under gdb.You can specify another script as TESTRUN_SCRIPT=path/to/script.rb.

You can define breakpoints in $(srcdir)/breakpoints.gdb.
parse
parses $(srcdir)/test.rb by miniruby, and dumps disassembled YARV opcodes.You can specify another script as TESTRUN_SCRIPT=path/to/script.rb.
benchmark
executes benchmarks. YOu can pass arguments to benchmark/driver.rb via variable OPTS.

up
updates your working copy. This does "svn up" (or "git pull") and regenerates revision.h.
love
execute up, all, test, install and test-all.
dist
retrieves a snapshot from optimizare seo the repository and generates tarballs.
help
prints a summary of make targets